Soylent Red

I want to be a magician. Five stars.

• Permanent Link

The Last Kiss is Zach Braff's first movie since last year's Garden State. This time he neither wrote nor directed, though apparently he did select the soundtrack.

The supporting cast were great. Special shout out to—I have no shame in admitting this—the infeasibly attractive Casey Affleck; far better than his brother. Rachel Bilson is this year's Natalie Portman (though I preferred last year's).

I wasn't as interested in the main story as I was in all of the myriad side-stories. I don't think the various threads had all that much influence on each other either.

Not a bad film. It certainly has its pluses, and not just in the partial nudity department. But I'm keen to see Braff go back to writing his own material. To be fair, I think it was actually rather good but not at all like the kind of movie I should have been watching today.

• Permanent Link
• Toggle Comments [1]

If An Inconvenient Truth can reach beyond preaching to the choir and actually affect the views of global warming deniers it may become the most important movie ever made. If An Inconvenient Truth can reach beyond preaching to the choir and actually affect the views of global warming deniers it may become the most important movie ever made. I said that twice because I want to highlight the fact that I really mean it, without hyperbole.

I went to see it not expecting to be hugely influenced. I was already aware, or so I thought, of the effects of global warming. I was already a member of what appears to be a disturbingly small minority who recognise that there is no uncertainty among scientists about whether global warming is happening or whether it is caused by human activity. It is, and it is. I went because I wanted to show my support.

But it turns out there was a hell of a lot that I didn't know. About the extent of our destruction of the world, about the importance of getting our shit in order, and most importantly about the fact that we have the means to do it.

Plus, it's funny. And it has a clip from Futurama.

• Permanent Link
• Toggle Comments [2]

I am beginning to notice a rather obvious trend here on Soylent Red towards every post being about movies. Perhaps this is what the yuppie thirty-something renovated loft-dwelling New York blogger ruling class mean when they refer to "finding a niche". Just my luck that my niche appears to be one of the most popular pastimes in the world.

Anyway, Clerks II. This is the sixth movie in a "trilogy" that I love. It is the sequel to one of my favourite comedies ever. It received an eight minute long standing ovation at the Cannes film festival. And it lived up to my expectations.

It was slow to start, which I found worrying because this was one of those films that I went to with a sense of needing it to be good. I certainly didn't want it to retroactively ruin the original like a certain pair of Matrix sequels did. Thankfully it picked up the pace soon enough. Now that I think of it, I have levelled the "slow to start" criticism a few times recently and been proved wrong. Maybe I should start to put more trust in the film makers.

This is another easy one for the "if you liked X you'll like this"-style reviewer. X is Clerks, quite simply.

• Permanent Link
• Toggle Comments [1]

This one's easy. If you like Anchorman then you'll like this. If you didn't like Anchorman then chances are I don't care for you as a person. Will Ferrell ("Cow and Chicken") is typically hit and miss but he hits a good average. Sacha Baron Cohen (The Jolly Boys' Last Stand) is capable but largely absent. The plot is standard sports movie fare.

• Permanent Link
• Toggle Comments [1]

Jagshemash. My name Rory. I make review Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. You read!

I have just returned from a special preview of the Borat movie months ahead of the full worldwide release, an event made somewhat less exclusive by the fact that it was a free promotion run by MySpace. Also by the fact that the cinema was only half full. Which obviously made my showing up two hours in advance to secure my seat a little unnecessary.

Verdict in short: it is, as any sane person would have expected, a very funny film. But I felt a little let down. Clearly Borat derives most of his humour—with the obvious exception of his Kazakhstan-based segments at the beginning and end—from the genuine reactions of perplexed Americans. These scenes are predictably hilarious.

The problem is that Borat has a plot. This is admittedly an unusual complaint to level against a film. Let me explain. A plot requires that it be driven forward. Driving a plot requires character motivation and advancement. Character motivation and advancement do not naturally derive from scenes of unrehearsed crackpot reactions to Borat's chauvinism and anti-Semitism. So by necessity there are lots of scenes that are, clearly and unashamedly, entirely scripted.

But, like watching a magician who is seen to use stooges and camera tricks on top of the expected sleight of hand and misdirection, these scripted scenes take away from the viewer's certainty in the reality of the rest of the film. It goes from, "I can't believe he reacted like that," to, "I don't believe he reacted like that."

If you can drag yourself back to believing in the authenticity of the non-character developing scenes, the ones that you expect to be of real people, then plot strikes once more. The climax of a film can not get away with following unrelated tangents. So as the film gets closer to the end the ratio of scripted to unscripted material shifts hugely to the former, leaving the most important part of the film far shorter of laughs than the rest.

All of that having been said, I don't think I went a single minute without laughing out loud. Borat is easily as funny as Sacha Baron-Cohen's other movie of this year, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (of which I owe you a review). I expect it to feature in the top five of 2006.

One final hilarity that I noticed while refusing to leave before the lights came up: there was a credit for "Mr Baron-Cohen's faeces provided by". Now there's a tantalising teaser for you for when the film is released fully in November.

• Permanent Link
• Toggle Comments [2]

A plot obviously. There were good parts of this film, mostly involving Robert Downey Jr. (Weird Science) and Woody Harrelson (Doc Hollywood), but they didn't add up to anything particularly impressive plot-wise. I think the basic idea—an undercover investigator assigned to observe himself thanks to technology that protects investigators' identities—had more potential than was realised here.

But like I said, it has a few entertaining scenes. And I loved the visual style, a cartoon look generated by rotoscoping the live action film.

• Permanent Link
• Toggle Comments [3]

Title: Snakes on a Plane

Genre: Horror/Action/Thriller/Snakes on a Plane

Plot synopsis: Snakes on a Plane

Watching Snakes on a Plane was without a doubt the most fun I've ever had in a cinema. I don't even know how to begin describing its awesomeness. There's nothing left to say. It's about snakes. On a plane. That's it. If you don't already love it then you won't love the film. But if you do love it, well then the film goes so far beyond what I expected in living up to its name.

It's two hours of utterly shameless pandering to the audience. Everything you want to see is in the film. "I hope it bites her on the... Ow! It bit her right on the...!" Of course it helped that the whole audience was completely behind the movie, cheering every one-liner and whooping at every gory snake bite. We had audience participation of a level perfectly suited to a movie that has relied so much on its fan base thus far.

If the SoaP phenomenon is something you want to be a part of you have to see it soon before the hardcore fans start to disappear from the cinemas leaving you to watch it on your own. It just won't be the same.

• Permanent Link

The major complaint that I read about this movie before going to see it was that it starts and ends well but slows down too much in the middle. Let me just say right now that the people who made this complaint obviously didn't watch the film. That "slow" bit in the middle is the film. The other bits are just the setup and the payoff. There are absolutely no pacing problems with Cars as long as you realise that it's not a racing movie.

What it is is a reflection on what we may be losing out on as our lives get busier and the world gets faster. It's designed to slow you down and allow you to reflect on what's really important. Now, being 23, what's really important to me generally doesn't include small middle-American towns past their prime.

I think the whole quiet remembrance of golden days past is likely to alienate some of Cars' younger viewers (although, as usual for Pixar, the very young are amply catered for). But even though I found the ideal of tranquillity it presented to be, well, less than ideal, the film made such a good job of presenting itself that it really didn't matter.

Jokes were fewer than in previous Pixar movies. Don't expect a Toy Story level of hilarity. There are still some moments that elicited a laugh or two from me.

Overall, and here's where it becomes blindingly obvious that I wasn't born to do film reviews, I would have difficulty saying exactly why I liked this movie so much. There's honestly not an awful lot that I can point to and say "that's why I liked it." Owen Wilson is among the reasons. As is the extraordinarily high-quality animation (which continues to wow me even having seen Pixar out-do themselves so many times before.) Throughout the film I was aware that it had been made by very talented people at the top of their game, and that at no point in the years of its development had anyone ever said "that's good enough, let's go home." I think that really shows in the finished product.

• Permanent Link

Like you, I grew up being told that if I have nothing nice to say I shouldn't say anything at all.

• Permanent Link
• Toggle Comments [4]